Bradstreet Gate: A Novel

by Robin Kirman

  Mrs. Gupta excused herself, leaving Georgia with the boy, who sat staring at his feet. He was just a child, shy and protected; his world, she imagined, consisted of these rooms, these servants, and his parents. She tried to recall a time, if such a time ever existed, when her own life had felt so small and safe.

  “You must be hungry.” Mrs. Gupta had returned with a servant, an old woman, who laid down a tray piled with mimosas, pastries, apricots, and figs. Georgia hadn’t eaten since the tea and toast offered by Mrs. Chandar in the morning, but she was wary of accepting more of this family’s gifts.

  “Mrs. Gupta, I think there’s some confusion here; I don’t know who came up with the idea that I can get your son into Harvard.”

  “I don’t expect that of you,” Mrs. Gupta said plainly. “That’s the sort of thing I rely on my husband to do. But I think there are things that you can teach him, to prepare him. Mr. Nandi told us about you. We’ve discussed your helping out. It’s quite all right with him.”

  “That may be. But I’m still not sure this will work.”

  “Has my son done something to discourage you?”

  “He seems perfectly nice. But I came here to do a different job.”

  “Maybe you want private compensation.”

  “That’s not it either.” There was a steeliness to this soft woman, a practicality behind her refinement that encouraged Georgia to try to negotiate. “I’ll tell you what. If the same assistance I give your son could be provided to others, if we could somehow arrange a class to include more children, from the orphanage—”

  “Ms. Calvin, be reasonable.”

  “I don’t see what’s unreasonable about that. I understand your husband is a patron.”

  Mrs. Gupta cocked her head, contemplating the young woman before her. “You don’t have children, do you?”

  “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

  Mrs. Gupta nodded. “Once you have a child, then you’ll understand.”

  No arguments, Georgia sensed, would serve to alter this woman’s need to improve her son’s chances at happiness, even by a sliver. And just because Georgia knew, firsthand, that acceptance into Harvard would not guarantee him health or peace or satisfaction, still she wasn’t going to lecture this woman about life’s contingencies.

  It must have seemed obvious to Mrs. Gupta, standing in her calm, elegant home, that if Georgia knew half as much about contingency as she did, she wouldn’t be wasting these few years while her looks remained and her status afforded her entrance into the highest circles wandering through third world nations. She would be finding a man like Mr. Gupta who would provide for her in her old age and send her children out into the world as well prepared as they could possibly be.

  How foolish she must seem then, Georgia thought, clinging to ideals of public service, while she clearly lacked the capacity to look after even herself. Her limbs were aching; she felt feverish. A thief had hold of her passport; Nandi had possession of her luggage; and she—without one rupee for a taxi, or one friend to call, or any home to stay in but the one Nandi was providing—was in no position to give voice to her scruples. If the Guptas wanted a tutor, who was she to wax indignant? Until she’d figured out her next move, until she was at liberty to move, perhaps she ought to agree to go along with whatever her hosts were asking.

  “My husband will settle everything, don’t worry.” Mrs. Gupta laid a hand on Georgia’s arm and gestured to the tray of food again. Georgia picked up a pastry, soaked in honey, and sank onto the cool sofa to wait with the silent boy for his father to return.

  17

  Two hours later, when Mr. Gupta finally appeared, Georgia was released and driven back to Mrs. Chandar’s. The old woman met her in the hall, informing her there had been a call for her. An American. “He says he comes here.”

  “From the embassy?”

  Mrs. Chandar nodded and wiped a cloth across her neck; there was sweat gathering in the wrinkles; she’d been cooking. The smell of oil and spices filled the narrow rooms, and the temperature had risen to above the heat outside.

  Georgia washed herself with a hand towel at the kitchen sink, then lay down on her cot. The news from Mrs. Chandar gave her relief enough to sleep a little, despite the honking cars outside her window: the incessant bleat of traffic. When she woke, mouth dry and limbs aching, the light in the room was dimmer, and a man was speaking with Mrs. Chandar in the hall. The words were Hindi, the accent American. His voice was familiar, deep and formal, though he was making an effort to sound buoyant.

  She stepped outside, and the man turned and gave a clap: “Georgia Calvin. What on earth are you doing in this place?”

  The visitor was brown haired and freckled, dressed in an off-white high-collared linen shirt. A jacket was thrown over his shoulder, with affected casualness; his eyes were hidden behind a pair of Ray-Bans, which he lifted, slowly, as Georgia took a step back.

  “It’s me, yes.”

  Her legs trembled. For an instant, she thought this figure must be a product of some fevered hallucination.

  Rufus Storrow: darker, more weathered, aged—but nevertheless it was him. Somehow he’d materialized here, in Mrs. Chandar’s rotting Mumbai flat. It wasn’t possible—she’d never been further out of reach from her past; no one from home knew where to find her. Not even her father had this address yet. And yet, this man whom she’d successfully avoided for four years, had appeared at her new home as simply as if he’d strolled from Harvard Yard onto Cowperthwaite Street.

  “I didn’t mean to take you by surprise,” Storrow said, smiling, with deeper creases now at the edges of his mouth. “I called earlier; I left a message that I’d be coming.”

  “That was you? You’re with the embassy?”

  “Not directly, no. I’ve been consulting on a case though, involving an American ex-soldier, and it’s involved some cooperation with the embassy. I’ve made friends over there, let’s say. That replacement passport, it’s being seen after, by the way. Is there somewhere we might sit?”

  Storrow peered around the rooms before starting toward the kitchen, where he took his seat at the small table. Though there was scarcely space for three, Mrs. Chandar slipped in behind him to offer him something to drink: “Tea, beer, sir?” Georgia caught the woman eyeing her and smiling: Storrow was still handsome and, seemingly, capable and friendly—the sort of man a young woman would be pleased to receive at her home, especially when she was in trouble. To Mrs. Chandar, Storrow must have seemed someone whose presence should soothe Georgia, rather than inspire the panic that was visibly overtaking her.

  She stood at the doorway, unable to move. “What do you want?”

  “Plain tap water would be grand,” Storrow remarked calmly. He turned to address Mrs. Chandar in his American-inflected Hindi and pulled out a chair for Georgia.

  She took her place in a different chair, across the tiny table; she couldn’t bring herself to sit alongside Storrow—this, the same man she’d once spent afternoons in bed with, studying the freckles that dotted his forehead and shoulders, the small scars by his brow and the bottom of his chin, all the details of that body still much the same, despite the different clothes and that dyed brown hair.

  She supposed she had been staring because Storrow grew self-conscious; he peered down at his shirt, worn more loosely these days, with a hint of slovenliness that was completely absent from the starched Storrow she’d encountered at Harvard. He ran his hands through his hair, which she observed was now receding at the temples.

  “To blend in better, I colored it finally. You must have noticed how it is here, if you’re fair. All that unwanted attention. Well, I’d had enough of that back home.”

  He smiled up at her, a different smile, too, than the one she recalled seeing, if not often, in the past: this one trickier and shakier. The smile of a man who’d faced plenty of stares, yes, and the question behind them: Am I looking at a killer?

  “How did you find me? Nobody knows I’m here.” She was
n’t about to pretend, even if Storrow meant to, that this was any sort of ordinary meeting. “You still haven’t told me how you got this address?”

  Storrow paused to thank Mrs. Chandar, who set his water glass before him and exited the room. “I happened to have some business in the embassy this morning. A friend there had come across your name on a request form. ‘Could it be the same Georgia Calvin?’ he asked me. He’s one of the few here who knows about my past, our history.”

  Their history.

  Storrow was watching her; there was a new gravity to his face, apparent once he’d stopped smiling—a raggedness around the eyes. He was still attractive, she couldn’t deny it, but he’d grown more battered and more bloated than the elegant sportsman she’d once admired from poolside. He’d begun to look like what he was now: a man approaching fifty, whose great energies had been spent. She knew something of his failed attempts, covered in the press, to avoid living under constant suspicion; even now he seemed to grow more tired as he took note of her alarm. Perhaps he’d hoped to be spared the task of persuading her, at least, that he wasn’t someone to be feared.

  “Of course,” he said, with that laborious good cheer. “I don’t blame you for being shocked. It’s quite a coincidence, both of us ending up here.”

  “Is it?”

  “Unless you’ve followed me,” he said, forcing a laugh. “You’re the one who’s just arrived; I’ve been here over a year already.” He took a gulp of the tap water, which was poison for newcomers, not that this stood as proof he’d spent the year here as he claimed.

  “You can imagine it’s been easier for me abroad,” he went on, since Georgia remained quiet; she could hear, behind his voice, the rush of blood in her ears. “I still have my old pals, from my time in Pakistan. Work isn’t a problem for me here. Just had to bone up on my Hindi and then, well, I’ve found myself settling in.”

  Storrow withdrew a handkerchief from his front pocket and patted his face slowly, until she’d had ample time to observe the thick gold band on his left hand.

  “You’re married.”

  He glanced over at his fingers, looking as if he was surprised to glimpse the ring himself. “Recently engaged.”

  Employed and engaged: Storrow welcomed back into society, albeit not the society he’d once worked so hard to impress. Could he have come today just to make his progress known to her? Was he vain enough to put them through this strenuous encounter just for that? Perhaps it was the spite of the rejected behind his boastful grin: the pride of having discovered satisfaction—even love—before she had.

  “You’re here alone?” he asked her.

  “With a volunteer program.” She didn’t know how much this alleged embassy friend had told him, but she wasn’t feeling eager to admit her isolation.

  “And out of all the places in the world, you’ve arrived in Mumbai.” Storrow tapped the table beside Georgia’s arm. He’d have preferred to touch her, it seemed, but this was as much as he’d permit himself. “It can’t be a fluke.”

  “What is it then?”

  He looked off at the small window, with that intensity she’d found in the past by turns oppressive and magnetic—as if the grapplings of his soul, his desires, his aspirations and regrets, were of such greater consequence than for the rest of us. “You’ve come for the same reason I have. To do penance.”

  Storrow’s face grew grim. In the harsh glare of the kitchen, she could see the sun and pollution had toughened his complexion, turned his delicate pallor to a mottled, unhealthy red. His features, now that his skin was rougher, looked more brutal. His green eyes settled on her, cold.

  “I’m not saying I killed that girl,” he remarked sharply, breaking the silence in the room, shrinking it around him, until she became aware of his strength, of the implicit threat he posed.

  “You said penance, not me.”

  “You’re right, I did. I did.” He clapped and laughed, a loud laugh that seemed to rattle the weak walls. “It’s good to see you, Georgia. Still the same spirit. Giving hell. Really, it’s good to see you’re well.”

  “And you, too,” she replied, though in fact, she wasn’t sure the man was at all well.

  He nodded, gratified. “Hasn’t always been that way, but I’ve come to accept what’s happened. Never considered myself a spiritual man, but when something awful happens to you—it does inspire reflection. Not at first; the first reaction, that’s plain rage. What did I do to deserve this? But the second reaction, which takes time, you start to ask, in earnest, did I do something to deserve this? Did I—somehow—bring this upon myself? That’s the beginning of self-knowledge and reform. Humility, let’s say.”

  But Storrow did not look humbled to her. He seemed to be gloating, rather, and to recognize that she was now his captive audience. This most unfortunate man—or so, in the press, he claimed to be—had finally caught a bit of luck: he’d managed to find her at her most vulnerable, in the one corner of the globe where he could present himself as an authority again.

  Even she couldn’t help seeing him that way a little, reminded of the mysteriously connected man who’d once rescued her from Gabe’s apartment in New York. Some small voice in her still wondered if he might rescue her again—from Nandi and Gupta, these people who’d lured her to Mumbai under false pretenses, and now meant to take advantage of her. She didn’t let this small voice speak, however, because she couldn’t be sure that Storrow wasn’t worse: that he hadn’t come, somehow, to take advantage of her, too.

  What could he want from her? After so many years, their affair should be behind him, but Storrow’s ordeal might have locked him in the past; how could she guess at the compulsive workings of his mind? Or, for that matter, her own?

  He’d come here to do penance Storrow said. And so, he said, had she.

  A thousand times her thoughts had circled back to that afternoon, four years ago, in Storrow’s office: maybe Julie had known they’d been having an affair. Or maybe, by coming by to break things off with Storrow, Georgia had caused him to lose his temper and say something foolish to Julie, something he’d come to regret so much that he’d gone after the girl—just to talk, just to get things squared away—later that week, late at night.

  “Georgia,” Storrow’s voice startled her. He wore a far-off expression, as if he’d been lost in contemplation of his own. “I really can’t quite believe we’re sitting here. Us. Again. On the other side of the world.”

  “Anyway, I won’t be staying,” she put in quickly. “Once my passport comes, I’m leaving India.”

  “Are you really?” His manner remained cool, but something desperate flashed in his eyes. “You might give this place a little bit more chance than that.”

  “It’s just that my position here hasn’t worked out.”

  “Maybe I could help you find another.”

  “No, no, thank you. I’m looking into other options, elsewhere.” Storrow’s apparent need for her to stay—this was enough to drive her out, even if all her plans hadn’t gone horribly awry thus far.

  All at once, Storrow grinned and lightly waved his hand: “Sure, India isn’t for everyone, I’ll admit. They do make a mess of things here—squirrelly people—though the country has its marvels too.”

  And really it would be a shame for her to fly off, he continued, before she’d taken in the Taj or the Ganges—or witnessed one of the charming local ceremonies. An authentic Indian wedding, for instance, was a spectacle that shouldn’t be missed. “Arpana’s and mine is just three weeks away—a two-day event at her family’s country estate.” Storrow fished through his wallet and withdrew a snapshot of himself alongside a young Indian woman, with smooth light skin and wide, dark eyes, her hair in a single braid.

  An Indian beauty. One with an obvious resemblance to Julie Patel.

  Georgia rose to her feet.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m sorry, but I…I haven’t slept and I’m not feeling very well.”

  “Right, right, o
f course.” Storrow stood and lifted his jacket over his shoulder; he was doing his utmost to remain calm, to insist upon his normalcy and this seemingly decent life that he’d constructed—work, a home, a fiancée—which struck her then as confirmation of his madness.

  At the exit to the kitchen he stopped and turned; he filled the doorway, his arms stretched out to touch each side. “Maybe I’ll be seeing you again then. If you’re still here in three weeks, before the wedding—who knows how long the embassy will take to process your paperwork.”

  “In an emergency, I expect they’re quick.”

  “And I do have friends there,” he reminded her. He offered her his hand, then rethought himself and waved, stepping out to the hall and leaving her to wonder if he meant to assist or impede her departure. The front door closed behind him and, for a full minute, Georgia stood there waiting to make sure it would not open again, that Storrow was finally gone. Her whole body shook as she took the few steps back to her room, where she imagined she might wake to find this had all been a fevered dream. Only the logic of a dream could explain Storrow’s finding her again: her, his erstwhile accomplice, lost like him beneath the Mumbai smog.

  18

  What awaited Alice beyond the mental ward on the day, two months into her treatment, that she was elevated to the status of outpatient would be enough to send anybody back behind those sterile walls. Enough, she thought, to send the sanest souls banging at that steel door, begging for readmittance, just to avoid the troubles that descended upon her sluggish, lithium-soaked frame.

  The messages from the lawyer alone: Mary Wittmer’s lawyer. Mary, who Alice had wished was, and at times convinced herself had been, an invention of her subconscious, a figure from a bad dream who teased her and tormented her but who surely couldn’t—not legally—file suit.